Guillermo Del Toro Bringing Terror Back to TV With The Strain

As a long time horror fan, I’m excited to see the genre returning to television. And with the millions of projects Guillermo Del Toro has his hands in, he’s also got his own terror series coming to FX, The Strain.

The Strain is based on a novel trilogy Del Toro wrote with Chuck Hogan, and Giant Freakin Robot tells us that the show could run from three to five seasons. The cast so far includes John Hurt (Alien), Sean Austin (Lord of the Rings), Doug Jones (Hellboy), and more.

The Strain is about vampires, which have recently taken a back seat to zombies, but knowing Del Toro, these won’t be Twilight style vampires by a long shot. An executive for FX has called The Strain “a truly epic story…That story would be told over three, four or five seasons. It will be somewhere between 39 and 65 episodes.”

It’s also great to see epic horror in the vein of Stephen King is back. Horror usually doesn’t go over two hours in the theaters, and with Salem’s Lot in 1979, a scary story could go much longer with deeper character development and a lengthier story arc. King’s back in TV with Under the Dome, which is doing very well in the ratings, and we’re dying to see what Del Toro can bring to TV as well.

According to The Strain’s wiki page, the pilot for the series will shoot next month in Toronto, Canada, where Del Toro also shot Pacific Rim, and FX has already laid down half a million to build the monsters, which right there gets us very excited.